Viral Hepatitis

Do you know that every year 1.4 million people worldwide die of viral hepatitis? It is one death every 30 seconds.

World Hepatitis Day takes place every year on July 28 (the day Baruch Bloomberg, the discoverer of Hepatitis B virus, was born) to raise awareness on this disease.

Five viruses cause hepatitis:

HBV e HCV (you can read my posts about them here and here), responsible for the great majority of hepatitis cases worldwide
HDV (the virus I study in the lab, I will write a post about it very soon)
HAV and HEV, transmitted through contaminated food and water, cause often fatal acute infections

In the 90s, two other viruses called HFV and HGV were identified; only HGV existence has been confirmed to date (also known as GBV-C), but it is unclear whether it causes hepatitis in humans.

Despite the availability of effective vaccines against HAV, HBV, and HDV, and of antivirals for the treatments of HC, about 300 million people are currently infected by these viruses, which severely damage the liver and can cause cancer.

While other infectious diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis have been the target of big investment during recent years, leading to a significant improvement in the life of infected people, viral hepatitis has been long neglected.

This is why the motto of World Hepatitis Day 2021 is “Hepatitis can’t wait”, there are too many unresolved problems:

Millions of people are unaware of their infection because tests are not accessible to everyone
In many cases mother-to-child transmission is not preventable during pregnancy
To date, it is not possible to eliminate HBV from the liver of infected patients
There are no antivirals against HDV, but the results of ongoing clinical trials are very promising
There is no vaccine against HCV
Infected people are often stigmatised and discriminated against, reducing their chances to have access to treatment and worsening the quality of their lives.

For all these reasons, the no-profit organisation World Hepatitis Alliance, founded and led by patients for the patients, works with the governments of many countries to raise awareness, influence policy change, and drive action, to eliminate viral hepatitis by 2030. Find out more at https://www.worldhepatitisalliance.org/

Images from https://www.worldhepatitisday.org/

Bibliography

https://www.worldhepatitisday.org/

https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2021/07/28/default-calendar/world-hepatitis-day-2021

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-a

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-b

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-c

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-d

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/hepatitis-e

Hepatitis G virus, Reshetnyak V.I. et al., World journal of gastroenterology 2008 http://doi.org/10.3748/wjg.14.4725